Late on the 24th of last month I ordered a 12ga. 26" vent rib barrel with a special order dull blue, (blasted) finish for my 1981 M-37 Magnum and a set of choke tubes from the folks at Upper Sandusky. Because of the special order finish they said it would take about ten business days to ship. I was pleasently surprised, (thinking it would be much longer due to the special order finish, if they would do it at all). The barrel arrived the 7th of this month, 13 days after placing the order. Considdering the time of day the order was placed, I received it on the tenth business day after ordering. Very prompt indeed!

The finish matches perfectly to my gun and headspace checks out good. This is the second time I've ordered from Ithaca and have gotten better than excelent service on both counts!

Now, if "Old Man Winter" would kindly step aside...

Pictures Pictures or it didn't happen......

I have one of the M-37 12ga Mags from right around that time frame. A couple days ago, I looked up the date, but suffering from CRS (can't remember sh*t, actually I do have short term issues) I forgot the year. It is going to be ticked at me as I have been paying more attention to the 16ga guns lately.

It has a matte finish finish on it also. Mine was a 2 barrel set. Had the Deerslayer barrel with it. I had my barrel reamed out to nominal 12ga size. Mine was maybe IC ? I don't remember the measurements. I just didn't want someone down the line to possibly run a sabot round down the barrel and maybe cause a pressure issue.

When I first starting using Winchester BRI sabots the sleeve halves were pretty hard plastic. I just had bad thoughts about what might happen. The BRI's were superbly accurate in my Deerslayer 2's though.

You can see the finish here

There ya go, the upper picture is with the new barrel on and the 30" full choke barrel laying beside it. The lower is a little closer with just the new 26" barrel on. The thing I've really noticed is weight. The new Upper Sandusky barrels are noticably heavier due to the interchangeable chokes.

Now we know where two of them are ! I found mine in a gunshop about 10 years ago. The stock and forearm were sad, dried out, not well finished. That is why they were replaced. Mine was the first gun I restocked. Started me down a path.

Mine came with interchangeable chokes.

If I was to redo it, I think I would use brown and black laminate or grey and black laminate, at the time, this is what was available for a decent price. These pieces came from Fajen back when they still did a lot of different stocks.

I got mine from a fellow who was setteling his brother's estate. There were 3 M-37's there when I got there, the Magnum, a Ducks Unlimited, and a late 60's-early 70's Field gun that had been through a lot of hunts. I'm not into commeratives and the Field gun in okay shape, but the screws had been bubba-buggered badly, I really don't have much use for a magnum as I don't hunt waterfoul or turkey, but it does appeal to me with it's plain rugged finish, so I bought it. Upon examination at home, it appears to have been fired a few times, but basiclly a new gun.

Not nearly as smooth as my old 1953 Featherweight, but handles well with it's original fixed choke barrel. The new Upper Sandusky barrel is much heavier throwing the balance forward quite a bit, but that's the price I have to pay for interchangeable chokes. It still comes up nice and points well though, and sight they use is excellent, much like the old Raybar.